


We were young.

by Sa_kun



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sa_kun/pseuds/Sa_kun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every Wednesday, Sam goes down to the ocean. <strong></strong></p>
            </blockquote>





	We were young.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [sastielweeek](sastielweek.tumblr.com) on tumblr, using the prompt: Anything with a nautical theme by [mishasmerkinofwarmjunk](mishasmerkinofwarmjunk.tumblr.com)  
> I read nautical theme, and my mind went to mermaids, the sea and there you have it. Maybe, strictly speaking, I should have involved more ships or boats, but that wasn’t how this story wanted to play out. ****

Every Wednesday, Sam got Dean to drop him off on the shore of an uninhabited island. The first time they did it, Sam had been twenty-six and freshly graduated (and re-settled) from Stanford. That was a couple of years ago, though, and he was older now, supposedly wiser, but mostly just a little more content in life. In front of him, the ocean looked the same, filled with gently lapping waves and ripples. It even smelt the same; felt the same as it tickled his bare toes.

He’d been twelve the first time Dean took him to the ocean. For an entire summer, Sam had been happy, tan as gingerbread cookie and so in love he could barely breathe.

Now, here, Sam couldn’t fathom ever leaving (not again; not like he’d been forced to that summer when he was twelve). In his pocked, his phone chirped and vibrated (Dean, wanting to know what Sam felt like stuffing his face with that night).

The time Sam almost drowned, he’d been twelve then, too (he could hardly breathe, remember?).

“Hello, Sam.”

“Cas.”

The waves splashed against the sand as heavy fins flopped down across the surface of the water, and then there was the sound of a heavy thump that made Sam grin. The salmon Castiel had thrown down on the shore was fat and heavy (salmon, Sam texted his brother. Got a big one. Cheater, Dean wrote back).

“Thanks, man.”

Castiel didn’t respond, but his eyes flashed and he looked as pleased with himself as only cats could when they got the cream, the canary and the obedience of an entire household. “I like it here,” he said instead.

Sam laughed; he couldn’t really disagree, could he? Here, the ocean was blue, salty and warm. Back where he’d lived before, on the mainland… Well, the ocean was as diverse as anything, of course, but there was a certain kind of freedom in being so completely surrounded by the vast, blue sea as he was here.

“Me, too,” Sam admitted.

“Better than San Francisco.”

“Yeah.” Sam shifted on the sand, sliding further down until the lapping waves reached his hips, forcing him to pull his phone out and hang it around his neck before it joined the long string of water-damaged brethren (okay, yeah, so Sam had the bad habit of forgetting to empty the pockets of his shorts before jumping into water). “I got you something, too.”

“Will I like it?”

“It’s shiny.”

“I like shiny,” Castiel said, sounding very earnest.

“I know you do.” Sam pulled out a pouch from one of his other pockets. It clinked when he dropped it into Castiel’s waiting hand. There were marbles inside, five of them, each as large as an eyeball and see-through with splashes of colour inside.

They were even prettier underneath the surface of the sea.

“Thank you, Sam,” Castiel said, the ocean splashing behind him. Sam smiled. “When will Dean arrive to drag you away from me?”

Sam shrugged. The skin across his nose felt a little tight, as if he’d been burned by the sun (again). “An hour, maybe?”

“Swim with me?”

Sam’s answering grin was swift and sunny. “Thought you’d never ask, man. Brought my flippers and all.”

“ _Those_ are not flippers,” Castiel reprimanded, bringing down his own to send enough water over Sam to make him look like a drenched dog. “ _Those_ are—”

“Crude, inefficient representations, yeah, I know, Cas,” Sam grumbled. He pulled his waterproof, floating cooler to him, then stuffed the fish in it along with his phone (which, yeah, he had a Ziploc bag for “just in case”, like Dean was always on about). Castiel grabbed the cooler out of his hands, holding onto the line as he efficiently flopped back into the sea. Sam wasn’t far behind him; as soon as his swimfins were in place, Sam scooted down into the water, and then he was free.

Castiel was waiting from him, moving with an enviable ease through the water.

Sam had been twelve the first time they met, off the coast of California. Dean had been sixteen, cocky and giddy with the freedom of having a car. They’d driven for two days to get there and, once they’d reached the cabin Dad had arranged for them, Sam hadn’t left the beach until he absolutely had to. He met Castiel the second week when a current caught hold of him and dragged him under.

_Held_ him under.

Presently, a cold, webbed hand caught Sam around the waist. “I want to show you something.”

Sam pulled his goggles down over his eyes. “Okay,” he agreed. These days, it was Castiel who pulled him under, not strong currents. It was also Castiel who always brought him back, time after time, just like he had since that first time when Sam was twelve and Castiel barely older than Dean.

Castiel flexed his body with the agility of an eel (okay, so maybe _dolphin_ sounded prettier or whatever, but Castiel was a lot more bendy than any of the dolphins Sam’d ever seen, and comparing Castiel’s movements with an octopus was just even more wrong), and then he was facing away from the surface. Sam followed him, holding on tightly to the hand in his.

Castiel’s hands were human and inhuman at the same time. He had five perfect fingers, just like Sam. Unlike Sam, his fingers were webbed and his knuckles scaly. Most of Castiel’s joints were scaly.

Castiel didn’t drag Sam far, just down to the bottom, which wasn’t that far considering how close to the shore they were, and a bit to the left. There was a ring of stones, most likely dragged there by Castiel, and between them lay a mound of marbles. Sam watched as Castiel carefully deposited the new ones, meticulous and precise in his movements as he flitted through the water above his treasure cove.

Castiel was a mermaid; of course he had a treasure cove. Maybe some people thought that a treasure should consist of gold, or diamonds, or rubies; something valuable, but fact was that a treasure was only precious to the person who collected it. The marbles were beautiful, and they were all a gift from Sam.

Sam left for the surface before Castiel had placed all of his new treasures. Instead of swimming back down, he relaxed his body and floated on the surface. When Castiel joined him, he wound part of his tail – fins and flippers and all – around Sam’s legs, and then they floated together, watching as sparse, fluffy clouds slowly danced across the too blue sky. Trusting Castiel to hold him up, to alert him if danger approached, Sam allowed the rhythmical swaying of the moving water to pull him into a light doze.

-x-

Sam woke slowly, aware only of the dual embrace of Castiel and the sea, and of Castiel, nuzzling along Sam’s shoulder.

“Cas?”

“Your brother’s approaching,” Cas murmured, tasting Sam’s skin.

“Yeah?”

“He’ll be here soon.” Castiel moved, releasing Sam and moving them into an upright position that forced Sam to tread water in order for them to maintain eye contact.

“Will you stay?”

Castiel didn’t answer. Instead, he tugged closer and ran his fingers through Sam’s hair, over his cheeks and down his arms. Castiel’s hair felt nothing like human hair, but it was doubly pleasing to touch. His teeth were a lot sharper than Sam’s, but that just made kissing an even more interesting experience. Sam ran his hands up and down Castile’s back, feeling and stroking – rubbing – along the flowing fins that followed the direction of his spine, shorter at the nape and growing progressively longer the closer to his waist they were situated. Castiel’s fins were probably the most striking facet about Castiel’s body; they were flashy, distracting and goddamn awesome (of course, Castiel said their females put even the most extravagant man to shame, but Sam kind of didn’t believe him).

“Cas?”

“I’ll come back in a week,” Castiel promised.

“Cas—”

“Sam,” Cas said, holding a finger across Sam’s lips. Somewhere among the waves a boat was approaching; even Sam could hear it now. He forgot about it when Castiel kissed him, though, when Castiel slid against him, slippery and soft and hard all at once.

When Dean steered his boat close, engine rumbling softly, Castiel pulled away.

“Hey, Cas, staying for dinner?”

“You ruin the fish,” Castiel called back, like he did every time. Then he pulled away, arched backwards and twisted into a dive.

“Yeah, yeah!” Dean shouted out at the sea – maybe Castiel heard him, maybe he didn’t. “So long and thanks for the fish, eh? Fucking show off.”

Instead of immediately swimming over to the boat, Sam dove under the surface. He could make out Castiel for a little while as flashes of lights and glittering scales and fins before he was too far away. When Sam resurfaced, Dean had already pulled the floating cooler aboard and lowered a ladder into the ocean.

“You okay, Sam?”

Sam pulled off his flippers, one by one, and threw them up on the boat before climbing on-board himself. “What’re we eating?”

Dean was quiet just long enough for it to get to Sam, then his brother shrugged. “Soup, I figure. Gotta make sure you keep your figure for your little mermaid, don’t I?”

“God, Dean,” Sam muttered.

“What? Gotta look out for you, don’t I?”

“Thanks,” Sam just said. Dean shrugged, looking uncomfortable and faking being relaxed at the same time. “I appreciate it, you know?”

“Yeah, I do. Now get dressed and start cooking, bitch. We got stomachs to fill.”

“I swear, Dean, yours is some kind of freakish black hole mutation; no one can eat—”

“Hey, come on, man!”

“What? I’m just telling it like it is. The things you put in your mouth…” Sam trailed off and shook his head. He pulled his goggles off, ran a hand through his hair and sat down on the bench next to Dean. “Can we stay here tonight, you think?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Dean said, and he didn’t say anything about Sam being a sappy sap who wanted to stay an extra day just to see if Castiel would maybe be back the next day, instead of having to wait for a week as he always did.

It wasn’t the first time they spent the night there, anchored right by the shore in their trusted old boat, sleeping on mattresses under the open sky, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Not all treasure was gold, or diamonds, or sparkling marbles. Sometimes, your treasure was the one person who made the world so much brighter and warmer (and also full of sparkling blue salt water, but that was beside the point; the point was that Sam fit with Castiel, and that was that).


End file.
